Pride & Prejudice Book Club Podcast

Two Austen heroines. Two very different temperaments. One surprisingly delightful friendship.

Last week, Ada Bright and Cass Grafton told us that friendship is the connective thread running through all their books. This week, we got to see that idea in action as Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot meet in Mr. Darcy’s Persuasion and quickly discover just how much they enjoy one another.

Of course, friendship isn’t the only relationship at the heart of this story. Anne is reunited with an injured Captain Wentworth, and a case of amnesia gives them both permission to make some very different choices. Meanwhile, Elizabeth is realizing that Darcy is not who she thought he was. Add in a blackmail plot and enough twists to keep both couples thoroughly occupied, and this Austen mashup gave us plenty to talk about!

There was just one small complication: Sharon hasn’t actually read Persuasion yet! So while Emilie compared these versions of Anne and Wentworth to their canon counterparts, Sharon got to meet them almost entirely through the eyes of Elizabeth and Darcy.

And bonus: the audiobook is read by friend of the podcast Harry Frost, who does an amazing job bringing this wide cast of characters to life!

What’s not to love?

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🎙️ Hosted by Emilie Davis and Sharon Cortez
🎵 Music Credit: Pride & Prejudice Book Club Theme composed, performed, and arranged by Megan Mason.
➡️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/newsletter!
✏️ Apply to be a Co-Host here: https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/nerd

From laughing in an online forum to immortalization in fiction, this friendship was built to last!

On today’s podcast, Emilie had the awesome opportunity to sit down with longtime friends and writing partners Ada Bright and Cass Grafton. They met more than twenty years ago through a Harry Potter fandom forum, discovered a shared love of Pride and Prejudice, and eventually wrote their friendship right into The Particular Charm of Miss Jane Austen.

Their writing partnership stretches from California to England, which means one of them can go to sleep stuck on a scene and wake up to discover the other has fixed it. It also means plenty of negotiating, especially when Cass’s historical research creates new plot bunnies and Ada’s mind inevitably wanders toward murder (the fictional variety, we swear!).

Through all their books, friendship has become the thread that holds everything together. And if we’re very, very lucky, there may be at least one more story headed our way...

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🎙️ Hosted by Emilie Davis, with special guests Ada Bright and Cass Grafton
🎵 Music Credit: Pride & Prejudice Book Club Theme composed, performed, and arranged by Megan Mason.
📚 See a list of books we’ve read at prideandprejudicebookclub.com!
➡️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/newsletter!
✏️ Apply to be a Co-Host here: https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/

What if reading Pride and Prejudice could get you arrested?

In June Hur’s Behind Five Willows, fiction is forbidden, books are copied and circulated in secret, and the person who understands you best may be someone you’ve never actually met.

Described by the author as “Pride and Prejudice meets You’ve Got Mail in Joseon Dynasty Korea,” this book gave us familiar Lizzie-and-Darcy energy in a setting unlike anything we’ve encountered before. In this episode, we talk about the real history behind the story, where the book draws inspiration from Pride and Prejudice (and where it takes its own path), and how Yu Seojun became a Darcy-esque character worth rooting for.

Pride and Prejudice may be what made us pick up this book, but it isn’t why we kept reading.

🎙️ Hosted by Emilie Davis and Sharon Cortez
🎵 Music Credit: Pride & Prejudice Book Club Theme composed, performed, and arranged by Megan Mason.
📚 See a list of books we’ve read at prideandprejudicebookclub.com!
➡️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and sign up for our newsletter at prideandprejudicebookclub.com/newsletter!
✏️ Apply to be a co-host!

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read... and by how many Jane Austen action figures they own.

(Let's just say both participants in this interview have a non-zero number.)

In this episode, Emilie sits down with M. Verant, author of the Miss Bennet's Dragon trilogy, and discovers the history buff, hopeless romantic, fantasy world-builder, and lifelong Austen fan behind the books. Their conversation wanders through dragons, Regency England, favorite film adaptations, overlooked characters, and the joy of creating entirely new worlds while staying true to the heart of Pride and Prejudice.

And for those who've already read Miss Bennet's Dragon, stick around for the spoiler section at the end, where Mike shares behind-the-scenes insights into the development of the first book's unforgettable villain.

🎙️ Hosted by Emilie Davis
🎵 Music Credit: Pride & Prejudice Book Club Theme composed, performed, and arranged by Megan Mason.
📚 See a list of books we've read at prideandprejudicebookclub.com.
➡️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or sign up for our newsletter at https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/newsletter/.
✏️ Apply to be a future guest co-host at https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/

📖 Learn more about M. Verant, sign up for his newsletter, and explore his books at https://mverant.com (or follow him on Bluesky)

Some books are so good you can't help but reread them over and over again. And when they're really good, you discover something new every time.

That's exactly what happened when listener Rachael Dague joined Emilie as a guest co-host to revisit Unfounded by Jessie Lewis.

Everyone already knows Emilie is a huge Jessie Lewis fan (with Mistaken still narrowly holding the top spot), but Unfounded isn't far behind. This episode is definitely a gushy one, filled with our favorite moments (romantic and otherwise!). But rereading the book also led to a few delightful revelations, especially for Emilie, as we uncovered details we'd somehow missed before, including the realization that Mrs. Reynolds's prejudice mirrors Elizabeth's in the original Pride and Prejudice.

As always, the conversation eventually wanders into other great variations and all the reasons we love Darcy and Elizabeth. Whether you're reading Unfounded for the first time or the fifth, we think you'll find something new to love right alongside us.

🎙️ Hosted by Emilie Davis and special guest co-host Rachael Dague

🎵 Music Credit: Pride & Prejudice Book Club Theme composed, performed, and arranged by Megan Mason.

📚 See a list of books we've read at prideandprejudicebookclub.com!

➡️ Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and sign up for our newsletter at https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/newsletter!

✏️ Apply to be a Co-Host here: https://www.prideandprejudicebookclub.com/nerd